3/8/23
Newsletter #269
The Crack of Dawn
So, back in the summer of 1975 in downtown San Francisco. There was me, sixteen, going on seventeen, attired in my mountain man outfit with a big bushy beard, an enormous backpack, army jacket and hiking boots, following around three young (meaning a few years older than me) hippies through Chinatown playing Pachinko. I hadn’t been to sleep in three days and felt like I was on LSD.
We finally went to their “commune,” which was a brownstone in Haight-Asbury, back when “The Haight” was the center of the world’s counterculture movement. Hippy regalia festooned the fronts of the buildings – peace signs, kooky graffiti, the Woodstock dove and guitar – and every other store seemed to be a headshop. Long-haired hippies were just sitting on their front stoops smoking weed. I thought, “This is the coolest place of earth.”
They took me to their brownstone apartment and it was huge, and there was presently a jampacked, rollicking, blow-out party going on. Everybody was smoking weed, drinking, smoking cigarettes, listening to loud music, and having a blast. Although it looked absolutely fabulous, I asked, “Where can I go to sleep?” They pointed at the couch in the middle of the living room, where the party was occurring. I understood that I would have to wait until the party was over to crash, and the party appeared to just be getting started. I did my best to have fun, and did, but I was in an odd, trippy, hypnotic state.
Hours later as the last partygoers left, I unrolled my sleeping bag on the couch. Fuck brushing my teeth, I stripped down to my skivvies, burrowed into my fluffy goose down sleeping bag and thankfully closed my eyes. A moment later I could feel a presence lurking over me. Startled, I opened my eyes to find Hope, the cute, straight-haired, hippy girl standing there in a plain white nightgown looking down at me. She asked, “Would you like a message?”
My weariness magically evaporated. I said, “Sure.” Hope had me lie face down, then removed her nightgown, climbed on my back, naked, and gave me an incredible message. And the prayer that I had made in the basement in Iowa City a few nights earlier was now answered on a couch in San Francisco.
I finally did get to sleep. I was awakened as the residents of the commune awoke and went about their morning routines. There were eight people living there, boys and girls, and they ran a performance/mime troupe. A long-haired boy walked into the other huge living room smoking a joint, which he passed around, and he was completely naked, which nobody took note of but me. Hope came in, clothed in jeans and a t-shirt, looking fresh and cute, and acknowledged me, but no more than that.
I wandered around the apartment. It was enormous and mostly unfurnished, except for junk furniture here and there. I found a storage room filled with racks of kooky costumes and various paraphernalia, like hats, canes, umbrellas, and silly props. There was also a big bookshelf loaded with books. It was an eclectic collection, and it included many old books. I sat down on the floor and began perusing them.
I swear this is true, but it’s so odd that I store it some secret vault of events that I’m not 100% sure really happened; except that I know they did. There was a nice old copy of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. As I always do, I opened it to its first pages to see it’s copyright, printing history, and what edition it was. I noticed a signature on a blank page, but skipped it. Gosh darn if it didn’t give every indication of being a first edition. I turned back a page and, I shit you not, it was signed by the author, “Arthur Conan Doyle.”
I sat there on the floor in the costume room of a hippy mime troupe in Haight-Asbury. They had taken me in, shown me kindness beyond my wildest dreams, and now I was seriously considering stealing one of their books. If this was what I thought it was, it was valuable; really valuable.
A plan had been concocted to go get pizza and everybody was assembling. I’m very pleased to say that I put the book back on their shelf, and went and joined them. I didn’t tell them what I found, and I was certain that none of them knew what they had. Wherever the book went next was up to the fates.
I hitchhiked to L.A. and stayed with my cousins in swanky Bel Air. A few days later I felt a burning sensation when I urinated. I went to their ritzy doctor in Beverly Hills and was informed that I had an STD called chlamydia. I was given large antibiotic pills and it was gone within a week. The doctor said that I should inform my partner. Well, Hope had not given me her phone number. I was certain that Hope, who was probably 20-21 years old, knew far more about these sorts of things than I. She lived in a hippy commune, for goodness sake.
That was my first long hitchhiking trip. Other than the chlamydia, I thought it was a smashing success.
It is in fact the crack of dawn, and I’m leaving on a jet plane for Florida in three hours. Adios, amigos. Buenos Dias.